Submissions Guidelines

We seek new and non-traditional works of science fiction and fantasy. We are especially interested in work by writers who fall outside the tradition of the white, male, northern European, first world, straight, capitalistic hegemony that dominates science fiction and fantasy.

We are looking for:

short stories of between 2,000 and 6,000 words

novellas between 10,000 and 30,000 words, which may be serialized over two or more issues

poetry under 50 lines

flash fiction between 100 and 500 words

Anything else, please query first.

Themes:

We publish voices and themes that fall outside traditional themes in science fiction and fantasy. For more information, read our manifesto. We are especially interested in seeing stories which address the themes of:

gender equality

feminism

Marxism and anti-capitalism

income inequality

climate change, especially with regard to how it impacts impoverished and under-represented peoples

minority issues

immigrant issues

racial issues

Keep in mind that humor in science fiction and fantasy is often unexpected, but appreciated.

Writing Tips

Language:

Avoid dialect. Provide hints at how a character speaks and let readers fill in the rest in their minds.

Avoid large amounts of jargon, especially at the beginning of your story.

Use non-English words and phrases in context. We publish in English. Use non-English expressions in such a way that you don't need to explain them in a footnote. Let your readers pick up their approximate meaning from the context of the story. (And don't worry if they don't get it exact. See Firefly for how to do this acceptably.)

Avoid gratuitous sex, profanity, or violence. The key word here is gratuitious. If these things move your story forward, by all means include them. But don't include them just for shock value. These elements, like all others, must serve a purpose in your story.

Stories should be strongly character-oriented. The scientific, magical, or supernatural elements should exist to move the story forward, not vice versa.

We are not interested in novel excerpts unless they can stand on their own. They may need a bit of reworking to function as a stand-alone story or to fit into your novel. How you rework it is entirely up to you.

We are not especially interested in horror, although we like dark fantasy. We can do without explicit gore. We are not interested in outright mystery, although the best stories all have an element of suspense.

That said, we may completely disregard all of the above if your story is especially strong. As we said, we are interested in those things that haven't been seen before, so feel free to try to surprise us.

But…you must avoid imitations. If you can describe your story as "It's just like Twilight, except…" rethink it. Give the world the next Twilight, not the last Twilight. Or better yet, give us something to make us forget Twilight. (While we're on the subject, Clarkesworld has a list of "hard sells" here. All we can add is "ditto".)

Rights and Payment

We acquire first worldwide electronic rights. "First" means that your story has never been published before in any form. If you publish your story on your blog, or read it in your podcast, it's already been published, and is therefore off the table for us. Sorry.

"Electronic" means that we publish on the web only. We may eventually do a print version of this magazine (unlikely) or a print anthology (hopefully), in which case we will negotiate for print or reprint rights, depending on where your story has been published in the meantime.

(Neil Clarke has a good, although not definitive, discussions of such things here.)

Payment:

We strongly believe that artists should be paid for their efforts when those efforts are published. Current payment is approximately US$20 per 5,000 words. Depending on subscription and advertising revenue, this is subject to change.

Submissions

Simultaneous Submissions

We're okay with simultaneous submissions, provided you inform us when you submit that you are sending this work to other venues. If someone else accepts your story, please send us an email via our contact form (reference the document name; see below) to let us know your story is no longer available. And if we accept your work, please let those other venues you submitted it to that it is no longer available.

Multiple Submissions

Do not submit multiple manuscripts to us. Please wait until you have heard from us about your current submission before sending us something else. If we want to see other examples of your work, we will ask. This may happen if we like your story but feel it is too similar to a story we recently published.

That said, when you do submit, please feel free to tell us about other writing projects that you are currently working on. We always love to hear about that.

We accept electronic submissions only. Save your work as one of the following formats:

Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx)

Portable Document Format (.pdf)

Rich Text File (.rtf)

Text file (.txt or .text)

LibreOffice or OpenOffice Writer document (.odt)

Submit it using our online form. (Please note that all form fields are required.)